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Dogs were the very first creatures that humans domesticated, and their remains have been found along with those of humans from before we even had basic things like agriculture. And, with the advent of molecular tools, researchers were able to identify the animal that was domesticated (the gray wolf), as well as a handful of breeds that appear to be "ancient," and split off close to the source of domestication.

It was a nice picture, but apparently it was probably wrong. That's the conclusion of a study that appeared in this week's PNAS, which uses a combination of genetic, archeological, and historic evidence to argue that the history of domestic dogs is such a mess that we're not going to be able to unravel it without resorting to large-scale genome sequencing efforts.

The challenges of sorting out what happened from archeological remains are significant. The source of domesticated dogs, the gray wolf, historically ranged across all of North America, Europe, and Asia. The earliest domesticated dogs, which appeared about 15,000 years ago, looked a whole lot like the wolves they were descended from, making unambiguous identification of domestic vs. wild animals a challenge. And once things that were clearly dogs started appearing, they appeared over a huge geographic range. The earliest remains appear in Europe, the Middle East, and Kamchatka (on Russia's Pacific coast) all within 1,500 years of each other. Within another thousand years after that, domestic dogs were present in North America, as well.

All of that would seem to make DNA testing the best way to bring some clarity. And, indeed, the authors have a prodigious amount of data at their disposal, having looked at nearly 50,000 individual variations in DNA sequences, using a population of 1,375 dogs and 19 wolves. As with past studies, these identified a handful of breeds as "ancient," meaning they appear to have branched off the family tree much closer to the domestication event. These breeds are the Akita, Basenji, Eurasier, Finnish Spitz, Saluki, and Shar-Pei (more on the Eurasier later).

But the authors themselves point out that there's a problem with their own data: none of these breeds are from the regions where the first remains of domesticated dogs are found, and a few come from outside the normal range of the grey wolf. In fact, the archeological evidence suggests that some of the genetic data can't be trusted at all. As far as we can tell, dogs spread across the Pacific only 3,500 years ago, but two breeds (Dingoes and New Guinea Singing Dogs) from there appear near the base of the tree. The same thing goes for Southern Africa, where dogs arrived less than 1,500 years ago, but a specific breed (Basenjis) looks ancient.

What in the world is going on here? The authors argue that it's a product of the odd history of the domestic dog. For one, we can largely throw out any genetic data from the Americas. Everything we have from there indicates that dogs were brought over in such large numbers by European colonists that they swamped out any breeds native to these regions. (In fact, a hairless mutation found in a breed "native" to Mexico is identical to that found in breeds in China.)

In Europe, most breeds aren't original. For example, the Irish Wolfhound has been proposed as being an old one, but wolves were already hunted to local extinction before 1800, and the original version of the breed probably died out shortly afterwards. (The current incarnation is probably the product of a recent attempt to revive the characteristics through selective breeding.) Similar things apply almost everywhere else; most breeds have probably only been around 300 years or less. And then both World Wars created large bottlenecks; many breeds were reduced to a handful of individuals, and some probably vanished entirely (only to be rebred since).

This process of rederiving breeds has made matters worse. In some cases, we know exactly how a breed came about. As the authors note, Eurasiers looked ancient, but were recently derived from a mix of Chows, Keeshonds, and Samoyeds. But all of these breeds come from near the base of the dog family tree. As a result, Eurasiers look like an ancient breed themselves, even though we know they're not.

The authors conclude that the breeds that appear ancient haven't actually split off from the dog family tree early. Instead, they've simply remained isolated during the massive shuffling and rederivation of breeds that has been taking place over the last few hundred years. That shuffling has made everything else look older, so that a breed that has only been isolated for a few thousand years suddenly looks ancient.

Will we ever sort this all out? The authors argue that the advent of cheap DNA sequencing could give us enough data to start pushing the resolving power back. But that would require that we decide knowing more about the dog's history is worth the resources required to do this sequencing.

Never really thought about it but I can see where this would be difficult. If I recall correctly a lot of the pure breed breeds are genetic train wrecks because of such selective breeding. I would imagine this would obfuscate the matters a bit. That might be interesting to follow up on.

is there a pic of the dog family tree? the author keeps saying 'from the base of the family tree', so what breeds are at the base of the tree, do we know?

I wonder if these guys ever read Jack London.

One key problem I see with trying to sort this out through genomic mapping is the fact that dogs have continually been interbred with their wild cousins probably forever. The populations aren't distinct and that probably makes a lot of the inferences you might draw from modern genetic data absolutely meaningless.

Did dogs come from grey wolves? That's what I read somewhere once or twice. That's what the headline seemed to be about. But the article said nothing more about dog origins, so I suppose I won't revise my mental factoid and will continue to believe that dogs came from gray wolves.

Did dogs come from grey wolves? That's what I read somewhere once or twice. That's what the headline seemed to be about. But the article said nothing more about dog origins, so I suppose I won't revise my mental factoid and will continue to believe that dogs came from gray wolves.

Second sentence, third paragraph wrote:

The source of domesticated dogs, the gray wolf, historically ranged across all of North America, Europe, and Asia.

There are full of mysteries like that in the area of biology and archeology. We don't know well about ourselves, even in a recent period. For example, how did the early humans reach the American continent? What we know so far are just theories or speculations.

Did dogs come from grey wolves? That's what I read somewhere once or twice. That's what the headline seemed to be about. But the article said nothing more about dog origins, so I suppose I won't revise my mental factoid and will continue to believe that dogs came from gray wolves.

The domestic dogs is a subspecies of the gray wolf. There's actually mDNA evidence that dogs and gray wolves are separated by 100,000 years, but there's no archaeological evidence of this more than 15,000 years ago. There's separate domesticated dog evidence from 33,000 years ago, but those dogs are not at all related to any modern dog.

There are full of mysteries like that in the area of biology and archeology. We don't know well about ourselves, even in a recent period. For example, how did the early humans reach the American continent? What we know so far are just theories or speculations.

I don't really think this is much in doubt - it's more trying to find exact archaeological evidence to support this, the problem being how cold it is where the land bridge is/was and the depth of the water. Also humans almost for sure crossed in several time bands - we see the same specie crossover in land mammals at the same times, so there's really no doubt. It's a lot like evolution, we know how it works and what happened in the general way, it's just that the exact specifics are slightly fuzzy.

What really twists my noodle is this: if we've done so much to dogs in less than 15 thousand years, then what have we and our societies done to us?

Recent studies are showing that humans are currently evolving, and are demonstrating that personality is strongly influenced by genetics (twin studies). It seems like inescapable logic to me that we humans must inevitably be selectively breeding ourselves for various traits, perhaps especially personality traits, which seem like an even stronger selection vector than simple physical externalities. It would seem impossible that we could somehow be immune from evolving ourselves. One key personality trait that I expect might well be selected strongly for in complex society is obedience, because most people at most times have been required to do as they are told, or else pay a very high price, often death. I have a strong suspicion that the term "sheeple" might have much more truth in it than we would like to admit.

What really twists my noodle is this: if we've done so much to dogs in less than 15 thousand years, then what have we and our societies done to us?

Recent studies are showing that humans are currently evolving, and are demonstrating that personality is strongly influenced by genetics (twin studies). It seems like inescapable logic to me that we humans must inevitably be selectively breeding ourselves for various traits, perhaps especially personality traits, which seem like an even stronger selection vector than simple physical externalities. It would seem impossible that we could somehow be immune from evolving ourselves. One key personality trait that I expect might well be selected strongly for in complex society is obedience, because most people at most times have been required to do as they are told, or else pay a very high price, often death. I have a strong suspicion that the term "sheeple" might have much more truth in it than we would like to admit.

On that subject, i ran into some research here in Norway that suggested mothers elect for better educated fathers. But also that said fathers gets "passed around". That is, the same man may have one or more child with a number of women.

Did dogs come from grey wolves? That's what I read somewhere once or twice. That's what the headline seemed to be about. But the article said nothing more about dog origins, so I suppose I won't revise my mental factoid and will continue to believe that dogs came from gray wolves.

The domestic dogs is a subspecies of the gray wolf. There's actually mDNA evidence that dogs and gray wolves are separated by 100,000 years, but there's no archaeological evidence of this more than 15,000 years ago. There's separate domesticated dog evidence from 33,000 years ago, but those dogs are not at all related to any modern dog.

There is evidence that gray wolves and eastern coyotes have previously interbred (and may still be...) leading to the larger size range of this sub species. Eastern and western coyotes are also not distinct species- they interbred to create a spectrum so there really is not a hard and fast difference between the two regional subspecies. I have even heard that dogs may be capable of interbreeding with coyotes and wolves but have not seen any definitive study on this.

What really twists my noodle is this: if we've done so much to dogs in less than 15 thousand years, then what have we and our societies done to us?

Recent studies are showing that humans are currently evolving, and are demonstrating that personality is strongly influenced by genetics (twin studies). It seems like inescapable logic to me that we humans must inevitably be selectively breeding ourselves for various traits, perhaps especially personality traits, which seem like an even stronger selection vector than simple physical externalities. It would seem impossible that we could somehow be immune from evolving ourselves. One key personality trait that I expect might well be selected strongly for in complex society is obedience, because most people at most times have been required to do as they are told, or else pay a very high price, often death. I have a strong suspicion that the term "sheeple" might have much more truth in it than we would like to admit.

Sorry if a little off topic:

I'll up you one on this. A subject that has my noodle, so to speak, all bent up lately. Besides what our societies have done to us, what have we done to ourselves through technology? We know that a majority of news sites are tailored to certain audiences. Examples such as Fox News for the more conservative leaning people and arguably MSNBC for those with a more liberal bent. And we tend to reinforce our world view through that. This is fairly well known.

What I've been marveling over is the concept of a 'Filter Bubble' and how it completely shapes our individual paradigms by feeding us information that search engine algorithms think we want to experience/read based on all the information they've gathered from us. I'll not go into detail but a couple good links for those who might be interested in how we're in a virtual feedback loop with our own relevant issues driving it and how we are driving our own perceptions of reality are posted below as a starter. This really kinda opened my eyes as to how I perceive the world now. The larger implications are mind boggling.

It was a nice picture, but apparently it was probably wrong. That's the conclusion of a study that appeared in this week's PNAS, which uses a combination of genetic, archeological, and historic evidence to argue that the history of domestic dogs is such a mess that we're not going to be able to unravel it without resorting to large-scale genome sequencing efforts.

Never really thought about it but I can see where this would be difficult. If I recall correctly a lot of the pure breed breeds are genetic train wrecks because of such selective breeding. I would imagine this would obfuscate the matters a bit. That might be interesting to follow up on.

Thanks for the read..

That's not really true anymore. "Puppy mill" dogs and the products of when mommy and daddy have their "purebred" puppy mill dog have puppies for the kids are train wrecks -- but they also usually aren't actually pure bred dogs.

Genetic testing of breeding stock is widely used by the reputable breeders, who generally show their dogs, produce a few litters per year at most and require non-breeding contracts for "pet quality" dogs (i.e. ones with some esoteric flaw that makes no difference except in a show ring). While show dog people can be nuts and some selective breeding (like pugs' noses) is still quite damaging, these are the breeders that are weeding the genetic flaws like von Wildebrand's Disease and Degenerative Myelopathy out of the gene pool.

It's hard to say if these diseases become paramount after WWI and WWII decimated dog populations, or if we are really only noticing them because of the longer lives dog's lead now.

Focusing on breeds is rather silly, as the authors of the PNAS article have essentially demonstrated. Identification of independent origins might be interesting, in terms of understanding the propensity for domestication (as well as general interest), but requires a lot of data given interbreeding, again as the authors have pointed out. Determining the molecular genetic basis of 'being a dog' is too narrow an initial question. Given that dogs are domesticated, 'dogness' could result from loci of major effect (rather than many minor effect loci), but that is definitely not a certainty, particularly given their long history of domestication. If there are many loci of small effect, then it doesn't make any sense to ask about specific loci.

Did dogs come from grey wolves? That's what I read somewhere once or twice. That's what the headline seemed to be about. But the article said nothing more about dog origins, so I suppose I won't revise my mental factoid and will continue to believe that dogs came from gray wolves.

The domestic dogs is a subspecies of the gray wolf. There's actually mDNA evidence that dogs and gray wolves are separated by 100,000 years, but there's no archaeological evidence of this more than 15,000 years ago. There's separate domesticated dog evidence from 33,000 years ago, but those dogs are not at all related to any modern dog.

There is evidence that gray wolves and eastern coyotes have previously interbred (and may still be...) leading to the larger size range of this sub species. Eastern and western coyotes are also not distinct species- they interbred to create a spectrum so there really is not a hard and fast difference between the two regional subspecies. I have even heard that dogs may be capable of interbreeding with coyotes and wolves but have not seen any definitive study on this.

Certainly wolves and domestic dogs crossbreed, I would assume coyotes as well. The listing of wolves as a separate species from the domestic dog certainly has some justification, but the classical species definition of them being non-breeding is certainly not applicable. Researchers get kudos for finding a new species, less kudos for sub-species and almost no kudos for finding out that the animal they found is just another dog.